The Champion’s Tunic, that blue tunic that replaced the iconic green combo of hat and tunic, only to become iconic itself, is a great deviation from Link’s usual design. But what caused the developers to choose this tunic? In an interview documented in the recently translated Breath of the Wild — Creating A Champion artbook, the development team for Breath of the Wild explains this choice of design.

Series director Eiji Aonuma explains the design change thusly:

“Link is the game’s protagonist, so I’ve always thought we need him to look cool. Yet, if we overdo it, the people playing the game might feel like they’re controlling an already accomplished hero, which I felt could get in the way of the players immersing themselves in the game. For that reason, this time I decided we should make Link a more neutral character in a variety of ways.

“We thought that the iconic green tunic and hat had become expected, so we wanted to mix things up and update his look. Interestingly, though, nobody on the team said, ‘Let’s make him blue!’ It just organically ended up that way.”

According to art director Satoru Takizawa, “There were close to one hundred designs presented within the team for Link”, and to add to that statement, senior lead artist Yoshiyuki Oyama has stated that the blue tunic of Link “stood out against the backgrounds” they were using.

The full comments from both Takizawa and Oyama are as follows:

Satoru Takizawa: “Producer Aonuma-san declared that we would be revising expectations by updating Link for this game. He wanted Link to be a more neutral character that players could see themselves as. You can feel how energized and excited the artists were about this idea from the really interesting modern concepts they drew. There were close to one hundred designs presented within the team for Link, and the number of sketches was too great to count.”

Yoshiyuki Oyama: “The Link of this game was to be a traveler from the frontier who exudes a sense of adventure, which is why there are a lot of designs that feature capes and bags.

At the beginning of development we drew a lot of landscape concepts. Link wearing blue clothes appeared pretty early on because the blue stood out against the backgrounds we were producing.”

What were your thoughts on Link’s new look in Breath of the Wild? Would you have liked the green tunic to be more front and center? Let us know in the comments.